Phoneme frequency in Mapudungun: a report

Abstract

This report presents the phoneme frequency of Mapudungun, a language of the Southern Cone of South America. The study analysed 2914 mono-morphemic units extracted from a major dictionary published in 1916 and re-edited in 2017. By excluding complex grammatical structures such as suffixes, compounds, and loanwords, the research established a frequency rank for 28 phonemes based on a total count of n=13287 instances. The results provide a phonological profile of Central Mapudungun, revealing that a small group of seven phonemes accounts for 50% of the total distribution. This report is based on Berríos (2023) and Berríos & Salamanca (2024), both originally written in Spanish.